Solid ink or phase change ink printers conventionally receive ink in a solid form, either as pellets or as ink sticks. The solid ink pellets or ink sticks are placed in a feed chute and a feed mechanism delivers the solid ink to a heater assembly. Solid ink sticks are either gravity fed or urged by a spring through the feed chute toward a heater plate in the heater assembly. The heater plate melts the solid ink impinging on the plate into a liquid that is delivered to a print head for jetting onto a recording medium. U.S. Pat. No. 5,734,402 for a Solid Ink Feed System, issued Mar. 31, 1998 to Rousseau et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,861,903 for an Ink Feed System, issued Jan. 19, 1999 to Crawford et al. describe exemplary systems for delivering solid ink sticks into a phase change ink printer.
In known printing systems having an intermediate imaging member, such as ink printing systems, the print process includes an imaging phase, a transfer phase, and an overhead phase. In ink printing systems, the imaging phase is the portion of the print process in which the ink is expelled through the piezoelectric elements comprising the print head in an image pattern onto the image drum or other intermediate imaging member. The transfer or transfix phase is the portion of the print process in which the ink image on the image drum is transferred to the recording medium. The overhead phase is the portion of the print process in which the operation of the intermediate imaging member and the transfer roller are synchronized for transfer of the image from the image drum or intermediate imaging member.
In currently known print processes for ink printing machines, bi-directional rotation of the intermediate imaging member is used for formation of the image on the intermediate imaging member. After the image is formed, the intermediate imaging member is stopped and its direction of rotation is reversed for transfer of the image from the drum. As the leading edge of the image approaches the transfer roller, the transfer roller is engaged to press the recording medium against the intermediate imaging member for transfer of the image from the intermediate imaging member to the recording medium. The intermediate imaging member is rotated more slowly during the transfer phase to transfer the image to the recording medium more efficiently. After the image is transferred and while the recording medium which bears the image is being transported into the output tray, the transfer roller is disengaged and the intermediate imaging member rotation is reversed for a new imaging operation.